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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25814344">The Worth of a Man</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/treesramblings/pseuds/treesramblings'>treesramblings</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>tree's stevetonygames bingo entries 2020 [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canonical Alternate Universe, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, M/M, Mental Instability, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Unrequited Love</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 12:08:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>910</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25814344</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/treesramblings/pseuds/treesramblings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a scoff from the passenger seat. “Don’t bullshit me, Rogers.”<br/>
</p>
<p>Steve breathes in as the memory hits him.<br/>
</p>
<p><em>(“Don’t bullshit me, Rogers. Did you know?”)</em><br/>
</p>
<p>He breathes out.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Steve Rogers/Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>tree's stevetonygames bingo entries 2020 [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1872934</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>116</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Worth of a Man</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>An angst ficlet for <a href="https://stevetonygames.dreamwidth.org/9569.html">The SteveTony Games</a>! This fills the Hallucination square!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I don’t know why you still pretend to care. <em>Why</em> do you care? You abandoned all of us to go back to a woman who had already lived her life and <em>moved on from you</em>.”
</p><p>Steve turns a corner, a few neighborhood children waving to him as he passes. He raises his hand in greeting and putters off down the street. After a tense moment of silence, he sighs. “You were still a part of my life for eleven years. I can’t just forget that.”
</p><p>There’s a scoff from the passenger seat. “Don’t bullshit me, Rogers.”
</p><p>Steve breathes in as the memory hits him.
</p><p><em>(“Don’t bullshit me, Rogers. Did you know?”)</em>
</p><p>He breathes out.
</p><p>“You left your precious Bucky behind once again. I guess watching him fall from the train wasn’t enough for you; you had to strand him in 20-fucking-23—”
</p><p>“Shut up!” Steve’s voice is hard, snapping out the command. “I didn’t—I didn’t abandon him. He has Sam still. He has the other Avengers. He—He understands.”
</p><p>“No, no, of course. Because the Avengers are enough for Bucky to get by without you. But you—no, the great Steven Grant Rogers, <em>Captain America</em>—you needed more. You needed a dead woman. You realize you only had Bucky before you enlisted, right? What was it—‘Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky’? You spent <em>eleven years</em> with us. Eleven whole years in the future. And still you had to come back, you had to have your precious Peggy, who you only knew for two years. You had to be around Howard, who’s too busy doing fuck-all to actually see you more than twice a year, and your Commandos, who all scattered around the world.”
</p><p>Steve slams on the breaks as a ball rolls across the street in front of him. A young girl runs out and catches it, curtsying at him with a toothy grin. He drives on, the two figures in the car silent, until Steve pulls into his driveway and turns off the vehicle.
</p><p>The man next to him is sneering when Steve finally looks over at him. “I guess I see where we ranked, huh? Once again you prove to me that all that talk about trust and family and <em>together</em> means shit to you.”
</p><p>“Look, it <em>doesn’t matter</em>. I’m not going back!” Steve shouts, slamming the dash with his hand. “I’m—I’m finally starting a family. Just like you told me to.”
</p><p>“You <em>had</em> a family, Rogers. You had us.”
</p><p>“<em>And you died</em>!” Steve roars, shaking with uncontainable anger and sadness. “You—” Steve closes his hand into a fist. “—You died, Tony.”
</p><p>The wind beneath his wings disappears and he falls, falls, falls, waiting to be caught, waiting for the sound of repulsors to signal he’s safe.
</p><p>The sound never comes.
</p><p>“What world would I want to live in without Tony Stark?” Steve whispers. His eyesight blurs, the visage in front of him shimmering. “At least here I can… I can watch you grow up. I can see you again.”
</p><p>Steve refuses to blink, refuses to let the tears fall, because he knows the moment he does it’ll be over and he’ll be alone again.
</p><p>“You left me way before I died, Rogers. You left me the moment you chose Barnes over me. You left me when you never called.”
</p><p>“You never called either, Tony. Don’t put this all on me. I left you a letter—”
</p><p>“You mean your bullshit of a letter, the <em>one time</em> you ever apologized to me, and you couldn’t even say it to my face? That letter? The one where you told me, ‘I never really fit in anywhere, even in the Army,’ and then you came back here with those people in the Army that let you feel alone?” Steve watches the grimace cross across the face in front of him. “We could’ve been so much more, Cap. We could’ve been everything. But now you’re just sitting here, in a car you hate, outside a house you hate, in a <em>time period</em> you hate. Alone.”
</p><p>He refuses to blink, he refuses, he just wants a bit more time—
</p><p>“I love you, Tony. I’m sorry. I should have—I never should have let you leave after Ultron. I should have told you to stay. I should have told you I didn’t blame you.”
</p><p>“Well. There’s a lot of things you should have done, Steve. And this here? This—This <em>playing house</em> with a woman you don’t even love anymore? Being unable to fight in the wars or protect people or do any of the things you want to because it’ll fuck up the timeline more than it already has? This is one of the things you shouldn’t have done.”
</p><p>Steve grips the dash harder; he can feel it cracking under the pressure but can’t seem to make himself care.
</p><p>“Everything I did was for you. We could have moved on from the Snap. I <em>had</em> moved on. I only came back because of you. I just have one question: was it worth it?”
</p><p>Steve can’t hold back the urge anymore; he closes his eyes and leans against the steering wheel, the sobs wracking his body. He hates what he’s done; hates what he’s become.
</p><p>When he finally opens his eyes, Tony—his apparition, his ghost, Steve’s manifestation of his grief—is gone. Even knowing Tony can’t hear him, knowing he’s alone, he whispers out anyway:
</p><p>“It wasn’t worth it.”</p>
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